James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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Friday, July 20, 2012

The poll results are now final for the crowd-sourced list of best classic art instruction books. I asked you to nominate your favorite how-to books that were older than 50 years, and then you voted in a poll.

The top three slots are occupied by Andrew Loomis (1892-1959), whose drawing is at right. Loomis attended the Art Students League in New York, where he studied under George Bridgman. (Bridgman himself has two books himself in the top ten.) Loomis did a variety of story and cover illustration, but his upbeat, glamorous style was especially well suited to advertising illustration. He taught at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Loomis's books are practical, encouraging, well-illustrated, and clearly written, though some people have faulted the figure drawings for a lack of ethnic diversity—there really are a lot of 1940s glamour nudes in high heels.

All of these books were huge favorites of mine when I was an art student, except Successful Drawing, which I was unaware of at the time.

Hey Jim I saw your art at the Allentown art museum yesterday--Congratulations by the way!--and I wanted to ask you:

When you look at the pages of the first Dinotopia book all these years later, is there anything you would change? Do you ever think about that? Is there anything you would have done differently with waterfall city or with canyon city or with the narrative or the relationship between humans and dinosaurs if you created Dinotopia today rather than two decades ago?

I haven't posted in awhile so I missed the original post. One really great book, especially if your going for a comic book style (Think Jim Lee or the Kubert's in style) is Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy.

James nice list. Luckily I have them all. One that I would like to mention is. Morris hunt (talks on Art). Obscure book to say the least but the wealth of info is meaningful and invigorating. Little bits here and there but they are gems. He was the one to introduce me to charcoal. I didn't understand then ..but I do now.

I'd love to see a similar list of books that are friendly for parents of young children. I've been asked fairly often for such recommendations and never have a good list of go to books for families seeking to encourage art from an early age.

I completely agree on Jack Hamm's Drawing the Head and Figure. Don't get me wrong - Loomis should be in the top slots IMHO, but Hamm's book is an excellent practical resource for drawing the details of surface anatomy.

I refer to it frequently and give it as a gift to new artists (including my 70 year old mother who just took up drawing a few years ago!) The style of illustration is a little dated now, but the information is not.

I would like to mention How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm-- this is the one book that I have practically destroyed with use over almost 30 years of Illustrating storyboards. I don't think there is any other author who goes into this freakish level of detail and analysis on any subject. I only got his Drawing the Head and Figure fairly recently, but I certainly wish I had that when I was starting out. I also have his Drawing Landscapes and Seascapes and would recommend all of them highly.

Eckert Brand--Yours is a thoughtful question, but the answer is imponderable. I can't contemplate what I would now change about the original Dinotopia, because I was a different person when I wrote it. We are all different people separated by 20 years of experience from our former selves. It is my general belief, however, that an artist should leave an early work well enough alone and move on. Should he be lucky enough to have enduring fans and historians, they will heave a collective sigh of relief.

Katy, my favorite old book on drawing for children is Drawing Made Easy by Lutz.

Shane, there are plenty of great and classic books more recent than 50 years old, but I set that as an arbitrary line.